Monday’s announcement followed a report by the state comptroller, an official watchdog body, that cited large sums of public money spent on food, furniture, cleaning and gardening at Netanyahu and his wife’s official residence in Jerusalem and their private home in the exclusive coastal city of Caesarea.

Cleaning expenses in that home alone averaged more than $2,100 a month in taxpayer’s money, according to the February report, even though the couple only spent the occasional weekend there. It also said they pocketed proceeds from recycling bottles that had been purchased for entertaining official guests. It said the bottle returns, and purchases of garden furniture for their private home, may have violated the law.

The Netanyahus are not expected to be questioned yet, with most of the focus directed at Ezra Saidoff, a staffer who oversees much of their affairs.

Netanyahu’s office declined comment, though in the past they have accused the media of launching a witch hunt against them.

The Netanyahus are no strangers to such scrutiny. The prime minister has long been saddled with an image as a cigar-smoking, cognac-drinking socialite, while his wife has come under fire for her own expensive tastes and alleged abusive behaviour toward staff.

Over the years, reports have been released about the high cost of the Netanyahus’ catering, housekeeping, furniture, clothing and makeup. In one case, the premier was chided for spending $127,000 in public funds for a special sleeping cabin on a flight to London. Even their costly purchases of scented candles and pistachio-flavoured ice cream have been derided.

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Tuesday’s nuclear deal with Iran a mistake of “historic proportions” and vowed to keep up efforts to block the Islamic Republic from obtaining an atomic bomb.

The strong reaction was echoed across the political spectrum in Israel, where concern is high the country’s arch enemy has duped the world and will acquire nuclear weapons to use against Israel. Iran already backs militant groups that attack Israel and its leaders frequently have referred to Israel’s destruction in the past.

Netanyahu has been at the forefront of global opposition to the deal and has openly clashed with the Obama administration and other Western powers that have been pushing for an easing of sanctions in return for greater restrictions on its nuclear program. Netanyahu showed no signs of tempering his criticism Tuesday and added a veiled threat of his own.

World powers have made far-reaching concessions in all areas that were supposed to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapons capability.

“One cannot prevent an agreement when the negotiators are willing to make more and more concessions to those who, even during the talks, keep chanting: ‘Death to America’,” he said, before meeting with Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders. “We knew very well that the desire to sign an agreement was stronger than anything and therefore we did not commit to preventing an agreement. We did commit to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and this commitment still stands.”

In the past, Israel has threatened to carry out a military strike against Iran’s nuclear installations. But that option appeared to fade as the U.S.-led group of powers engaged in diplomacy with Iran.

To our neighbours: Do not be deceived by the propaganda of the warmongering Zionist regime. #Iran & its power will translate into your power

Israel’s first course of action looks to be an intense lobbying effort in the U.S. Congress to oppose the deal. Netanyahu spoke against the emerging deal before a joint session of Congress in March. Yet despite strong support among Republicans in Congress, there is little that can be done now.

The Senate can weigh in on the agreement but can’t kill it, because Obama doesn’t need congressional approval for a multinational deal that is not designated a treaty.

Lawmakers have 60 days to review the agreement, during which Obama can’t ease penalties on Iran. Only if lawmakers were to build a veto-proof majority behind new legislation enacting new sanctions or preventing Obama from suspending existing ones, the administration would be prevented from living up to the accord.

Carlos Barria, Pool Photo via APBritish Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, 2nd right, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, right, and European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, left, talk to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif as the wait for Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, not pictured, for a group picture at the Vienna International Center in Vienna, Austria, Tuesday, July 14, 2015.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who heads the hawkish Jewish Home party, said July 14 will be remembered a “dark day for the free world.” Cabinet Minister Miri Regev said the agreement gave Iran a “license to kill.”

The cascade of criticism crossed party lines, reflecting the widespread opposition to the deal in Israel.

“This is a regime based in deceit, and now they are going to do what they did for the last 20 years, which is trying to get themselves nuclear weapons behind the back of the world,” Yair Lapid, the head of the opposition Yesh Atid Party, told The Associated Press. “Now they are going to do it with the help of the international community.”

Netanyahu called on all sides to “put petty politics aside” and unite behind opposing Iran.

“Our concern, of course, is that the militant Islamic state of Iran is going to receive a sure path to nuclear weapons,” he said, adding that Iran would get a “jackpot of cash bonanza of hundreds of billions of dollars.”

The majority of Israeli Jews supports a controversial proposal for segregated buses that has been compared to apartheid, according to a new Peace Index survey.

Most Israeli Jews, 52 per cent, support implementing separations between Jews and Palestinians on buses travelling between the West Bank and Israel, according to the survey released on Monday by a working group of an “independent, non-partisan” think-tank, the Israel Democracy Institute.

Over 70 per cent of Arabs polled expressed opposition to the idea of segregated busing, the survey found.

On May 20, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suspended the controversial program that would have barred Palestinians from riding on the same buses as Jewish settlers when travelling between the West Bank and Israel.

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The three-month pilot program requiring segregated busing, which Netanyahu called “unacceptable,” was launched on May 19 after being proposed by the Israeli defense minister, Moshe Ya’alon.

Ya’alon said enforced segregation was necessary in order to allow “better control of the Palestinians and those leaving Israel and (to) reduce security risks,” according to Israeli public radio.

Some Israeli political leaders criticized the decision, including opposition leader Isaac Herzog.

“The separation between Palestinians and Jews on public transportation is an unnecessary humiliation and a stain on the face of the country and its citizens,” Herzog said in a status posted to his official Facebook page.

Many have criticized the suggestion that proposals for segregated buses are the result of genuine safety concerns

Only 19 per cent of Herzog’s Zionist Union party members supported the idea of segregated buses, according to the Peace Index survey, while 73 per cent of Netanyahu’s Likud party members polled expressed their approval.

Polling took place by telephone on June 1–4, well after Netanyahu cancelled the plan, and included over 600 respondents who are representative of the adult Israeli population, according to the survey.

Support for segregated buses among Israeli Jews has existed for years, especially among settlers, who claim the step is necessary in order to ensure their safety.

Lior Mizrahi / Getty Images
Israeli settlers marched from the Ulpana outpost to the High Court of Justice in Jerusalem in June 2012.

Many, including Israel’s Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, have criticized the suggestion that proposals for segregated buses are the result of genuine safety concerns.

Instead, politicians’ efforts to segregate buses is the result of pressure from Jewish settlers who simply “don’t want to travel with Arabs on the bus,” Livni said in a 2014 interview with Army Radio, comparing settler demands for segregation to “apartheid.”

Livni said she would support segregation if it was necessary to ensure safety, but, “If we’re talking about settler pressure, that it’s not convenient or pleasant for them in the very places they sought to live, where there are Palestinians – that’s something I find unacceptable.”

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/israel-middle-east/majority-of-israeli-jews-support-a-plan-for-segregated-buses-that-has-been-compared-to-apartheid-survey/feed0stdBUSBOYCOTTLior Mizrahi / Getty Images Lawyers with time on their hands, and Monday’s other reasons to fear for humanityhttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/lawyers-with-time-on-their-hands-and-mondays-other-reasons-to-fear-for-humanity
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1. There’s time to be wasted

JOHN STILLWELL/AFP/Getty The Royals visit a butterfly museum

Lawyers with too much time on their hands: a pair of Quebec lawyers wants a 2013 law that changed the rules of royal succession so that the firstborn got the crown, whether it happened to be a male or female, declared unconstitutional. Harper was just going along with the rest of the 16 Commonwealth countries when he agreed to the change, and probably figured it was just a recognition of the obvious, that women and men are equal. But no, the lawyers couldn’t live with that. They say he should have made it a full-blown constitutional change and consulted the provinces, wasting vast amounts of time and public resources.

2. British Columbia’s new head tax

THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Jonathan HaywardAny bids for this one?

A B.C. survey found that a huge majority favours an “absentee homeowner” tax, i.e. a tax on people who buy houses but leave them empty. A lot of people in the Asian community suspect it’s a race tax, because they’re the ones blamed for pouring money into houses they don’t plan to live in. And they’re probably right, though you could argue that supporters don’t really care about race, they’re just fed up with prices spiralling and houses being used as piggy banks for foreign money while it gets increasingly impossible for the average person to afford one. The survey found the highest support among Vancouver residents and young people (because they’re the ones getting squeezed out), but also among those in the highest annual household income bracket. Of those surveyed, 86 per cent believe that absentee homeowners are speculators and not really part of the community.

3. Slave-drivers at the Red Cross

PHILIPPE DESMAZES/AFP/Getty ImagesVolunteers prepare bags of potatoes at a Red Cross centre before distributing them in Ukraine.

The headquarters of the Red Cross in Paris faces fines and repayments of up to $15 million for overworking its staff while striving to deliver humanitarian aid around the world. Le Parisien newspaper said the organization faced fines of about $1,000 for each of 3,800 violations involving staff working more than the legal limit of 10 hours in a day, or 48 hours in a week. Plus some weren’t given the required 11 hours between shifts. The French are very strict about work hours. A union representative said they’d been warning the organization for months against making people work too hard.

4. Lawyers suing lawyers over a law school

Lyle Stafford for National Post/FilesTrinity Western University

Trinity Western University in B.C. is suing the Law Society of Ontario over its refusal to recognize its law graduates (even though there aren’t any yet, as the law school has yet to open). CBC reports that “the case between the private university and the Law Society of Upper Canada pits religious freedoms against same-sex equality rights, with each side saying one is discriminating against the other.” TWU recently won a similar case in Nova Scotia. It’s all about the university’s covenant against gossip, obscene language, prejudice, harassment, lying, cheating, stealing, pornography, drunkenness and sexual intimacy “that violates the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman.”

5. Israel contemplates 20 years for stone-throwing

Israel’s cabinet approved a new law Sunday that would increase the jail time for throwing stones at moving vehicles to between 10 and 20 years, depending on the circumstances. The bill is the first measure by the new Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked, who was added to the cabinet at the insistence of the Jewish Home party in return for supporting Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, giving it 61 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. The bill, which still needs Knesset approval, amends an earlier law that allows lengthy prison terms for rock throwers, but only if it could be proved they intended to cause harm. The amended version lowers that bar to make it easier to obtain convictions.

6. Drop the smoke, buddy. This is Alberta

Reuters files

Nova Scotia and Alberta have both banned menthol cigarettes. Saskatchewan and B.C. and others haven’t, setting up a great business opportunity in illicit menthol smokes up and down the TransCanada highway.

7. If it’s Ottawa, it must be a syndrome

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Fred Chartrand An epic case of "presenteeism".

A mental health expert says “presenteeism” in the public service is a more insidious problem than the absenteeism. He says it’s a $6 billion problem. “Presenteeism” means people who show up for work even though they aren’t really feeling up to it. It’s all part of the civil service’s battle to keep Treasury Board President Tony Clement from changing the disability plan. In the real world, lots of people go to work when they’d rather not, but never mind that. We’re talking civil service here, so it’s a disorder.

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday called off a proposed plan to segregate Palestinians from Israelis on West Bank buses, overruling his own defence minister following a flurry of criticism in an attempt to avert the first crisis of his new government.

An official in the prime minister’s office said Netanyahu called Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon to tell him he found his proposal “unacceptable” and the two then decided to freeze the plan.

Yaalon had launched the three-month pilot program following repeated complaints from Jewish settlers who ride the buses and say the Palestinian workers constitute a security threat and harass female Jewish riders.

Thousands of Palestinians enter Israel for work each day from the West Bank and often return home in buses alongside Jewish settlers. The Palestinian labourers all have security clearance and special permits, but the proposed change would have forced them to return home through the same checkpoint they entered and prevented them from riding West Bank buses alongside Israelis.

Critics derided the plan as racist and said it would harm Israel’s image, which has already been under pressure because of its continued settlement activity in the West Bank. Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war and Palestinians want it as part of their future state.

“The separation between Palestinians and Jews on public transportation is an unnecessary humiliation and a stain on the face of the country and its citizens,” opposition leader Isaac Herzog wrote on his Facebook page. “It adds unnecessary oil to the bonfire of hate against Israel in the world.”

Zehava Galon, leader of the dovish Meretz party, went further, saying, “This is how apartheid looks.”

The proposal even came under fire from backers of the settlements, who said it did not promote their cause and created undue damage to Israel’s image.

Netanyahu quickly reversed course amid the criticism, marking an inauspicious start for a government that took office this week and has held exactly one cabinet meeting.

Netanyahu’s narrow coalition is dominated by hard-line lawmakers aligned with the West Bank settler movement. In particular, the heavily pro-settler Jewish Home party managed to drive a tough bargain during coalition negotiations — with party members securing appointments as education minister, agriculture minister, justice minister and deputy defence minister.

Such statements go against the very foundations of the state of Israel, and impact upon our very ability to establish here a Jewish and democratic state

Their support for further settlement construction, and their opposition to peacemaking with the Palestinians, has set the stage for likely clashes between Israel and its Western allies. The bus segregation plan, if implemented, would have likely drawn global comparisons to both South African apartheid and the racial segregation on buses that sparked the American civil rights movement.

Israel’s largely ceremonial president, Reuven Rivlin, commended the reversal of course saying that such separation between Israelis and Arabs would be “unthinkable.”

“Such statements go against the very foundations of the state of Israel, and impact upon our very ability to establish here a Jewish and democratic state,” he said. “It is important we remember that our sovereignty obligates us to prove our ability to live side by side.”

Later Wednesday, Netanyahu was scheduled to meet the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini. The EU has voiced harsh criticism of Israeli settlements, and some countries are pushing for the bloc to require goods produced in settlements to have special labels if they are to be sold in Europe.

It is important we remember that our sovereignty obligates us to prove our ability to live side by side

Meanwhile, a Palestinian attacker in a vehicle ran over two police officers in east Jerusalem, police said.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld says said officers on the scene opened fire at the attacker and killed him. The two police officers were lightly wounded and evacuated to a hospital.

Israel has seen several isolated vehicular and stabbing attacks in Jerusalem in recent months, raising fears of a renewed wave of Palestinian violence like the one that gripped the country a decade ago.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/israel-middle-east/israeli-pm-overrules-his-defence-minister-cancels-plan-for-segregated-buses-in-the-west-bank/feed2stdIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a statement during the traditional photograph in honour of the swearing in of the 34th Government of Israel on Tuesday at the presidential compound in Jerusalem.AP Photo/Sebastian ScheinerThe left hates her and Netanyahu won’t shake her hand: Meet Ayelet Shaked, Israel’s new justice ministerhttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/israel-middle-east/the-left-hates-her-and-netanyahu-wont-shake-her-hand-meet-ayelet-shaked-israels-new-justice-minister
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/israel-middle-east/the-left-hates-her-and-netanyahu-wont-shake-her-hand-meet-ayelet-shaked-israels-new-justice-minister#commentsFri, 15 May 2015 17:38:25 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=771523

A year ago, Ayelet Shaked was an obscure Israeli politician. Known to Israelis, if at all, for being a secular Jew and a working mother whose membership in the Jewish Home Party — a deeply religious ring-wing outfit boasting firebrand pro-settler beliefs — seemed an odd fit.

But then one day last June Shaked signed into her Facebook account and began to write in Hebrew, posting a 631-word excerpt from a previously unpublished article by Uri Elitzur, a former chief of staff to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Behind every terrorist stands dozens of men and women,” the post read.

“Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons — nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes.

“Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.”

Facebook

The post was picked up and translated into English, blogged and re-blogged and carried on news sites around the world, where the little-known Israeli politician was pilloried for being a Nazi in disguise and advocating for the murder of Palestinian children. Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan even likened Shaked to Hitler.

But the controversial Facebook post wasn’t a career-killer. In fact, Shaked didn’t apologize for it, and instead sat down to write some more. This time using her own words in a column for the Jerusalem Post, she said that Elitzur’s text had been butchered in translation and twisted out of context.

And yet a fundamental point rang clear: Israel was under siege from Hamas’ rockets and so what then, she asked — addressing the West — was Israel to do?

“Our residents in southern Israel have endured these [Hamas] missiles for more than 14 years. Many children and teens have known only life in a war zone…

“How would you want your own government to deal with a similar onslaught in your neighbourhood? What do you want us to do? Lie down and die?”

FacebookAyelet Shaked became an overnight political sensation in Israel after a Facebook post of hers was widely shared internationally.

Overnight, a political novice was transformed into a potent and polarizing Israeli political brand. Shaked was dangerous, in some eyes, because of her views, but apparently also because of what she was: A woman — dark-haired and attractive, young and secular, articulate and unapologetic in her right-wing beliefs. Her political goals include, among other things, enshrining into law that Israel is a Jewish state; opposing any two-state solution with the Palestinians; limiting the powers of the Israeli Supreme Court; ending the presidential right to pardon terrorists and deporting the country’s African migrants, a population Shaked has described as “infiltrators.”

The 39-year-old has referred to Likud, the party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — a man she used to work for, and openly dislikes — as being too far to the “left.” Now the pair are being reunited in cabinet, following Shaked’s swearing in as Israel’s new Minister of Justice Thursday.

It is a post Netanyahu handed to her to last week, though only under duress. The Jewish Home Party insisted on her as part of a last-minute deal that allowed the prime minister to form a narrow 61-seat coalition government following Likud’s victory in the March 17 elections.

“The Shaked appointment is a reflection of the public mood in Israel, whether we like it or we don’t,” says Yakov Rabkin, a historian at the Université de Montreal, who was in Israel during the campaign. “She is very anti-Palestinian. She has violent discourse and all that, but in that, she reflects the public mood.”

She has violent discourse and all that, but in that, she reflects the public mood

Shaked’s critics greeted news of her appointment as a national outrage best summarized by Nachman Shai, of the centre-left Zionist Union party, who said that giving her the justice portfolio was like “appointing a pyromaniac to head the fire department.”

The smoke around Shaked billowed in less savoury directions, too. Joseph Paritzky, a former cabinet minister, fired off a Facebook screed fixating on Shaked’s looks.

“Finally we have a justice minister worthy of being featured on a calendar in an auto repair shop.” He went further on Israeli radio. “She is very beautiful,” he told Radio Darom, “like many of the Reich’s women.”

A gossip item appeared in an Israeli paper noting that Shaked celebrated her 39th birthday on May 7 at a luxury hotel, but had disappointed the other hotel guests by keeping her “clothes on” poolside.

Photo-shopped images of Shaked as a Nazi resurfaced, the Facebook controversy from a year ago was revived and death threats were made against her, prompting the Knesset Guard to place her under special protection this week.

Even political foes have stepped up in her defence. “I profoundly disagree with the views of Ayelet Shaked, members of Jewish Home and the new government in general,” said former justice minister Tzipi Livni, co-leader of the Zionist Union alliance that finished second to Likud. “But I strongly condemn the chauvinistic attitude of these images, especially those with the SS uniform.”

Ayelet Shaked/Facebook Ayelet Shaked poses with supporters in a photo posted on the politician's Facebook page.

Meanwhile, Shaked’s rapid rise — she was first elected to the Knesset in 2013 — has many Israelis wondering just who, exactly, she is, and whether her past might afford some clues into the hard-liner politician she professes to be.

But that past only adds to the confusion. Shaked should not be an ultra-conservative. She is not from some wild frontier, with Hamas rockets falling around, but grew up in North Tel Aviv in an upper middle class secular home. Her mother worked, and identified as a liberal. Her father was an Iraqi Jew. And yet their daughter — with hindsight — has said she identified as “right wing” by age 8.

Shaked’s true political awakening came while serving as an infantry instructor in the Golani Brigade, where she connected with the “religious-Zionist public,” even while some of her friends then, and now, were connecting with more left-wing politics. (She is married to a fighter pilot).

GALI TIBBON/AFP/Getty Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of the right-wing Jewish Home party, Naftali Bennett give a press conference at the Knesset in Jerusalem, on May 6, 2015, to announce the formation of a coalition government.

Her husband refers to her as “the computer,” because of her detached approach to politics, while she says her best friend has likened her to a “robot.”

“They say I am very calculated and not very sensitive,” Shaked told the New York Times this week. “There are many things that bother them, and I don’t see or feel it…

“If you get into emotions, then it disturbs your work.”

A graduate of Tel Aviv University, with an electrical engineering and computer science degree, she worked for Texas Instruments before landing in Netanyahu’s office in 2006 as his bureau chief. Two years later she quit — along with the future leader of Jewish Home, Naftali Bennett — because working for Netanyahu was, she later said, “impossible.”

Indeed. The two are not close.

Netanyahu declined to shake his former employee’s hand at a ceremony introducing her as the new minister. But whatever the prime minister feels on a personal level, he may need Shaked politically, and not just to keep his coalition afloat.

“There is a larger issue here, and it is the tension between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama,” says Harlan Ullman, a national security expert at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C. “Netanyahu sees the United States as moving closer to Iran, and if there is a nuclear agreement, and if it leads to better relations, Israel is going to be unhappy.

“So Shaked’s appointment reinforces Netanyahu’s view that no matter what he says, he is subliminally or psychologically or implicitly opposed to a two state solution [with the Palestinians].

“But for political reasons, he can’t be quite so overt.”

But Shaked can be overt. She is an open book of opinions, freely dispensed in interviews and Facebook posts. The new justice minister last posted to the social networking site two days before the election. Urging her supporters to stay strong in their beliefs; to understand that they were on the verge of something monumental; to choose her.

“With tremendous spirit and conviction in our ideals and values — we will succeed, big-time, and have an effect on Israel’s future,” she wrote.

A Second World War commemoration is the latest point of contention between Israel and Russia, days after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia has lifted the ban on selling S-300 missiles to Iran. Israeli officials announced they will not send a representative to Russia for the ceremonies marking 70 years since its victory over Germany, set to take place in Moscow’s Red Square next month.

Many Western nations declined to send high-level representatives because of tensions surrounding Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine. But there had been discussions in Israel of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or President Reuven Rivlin attending. But Israel later announced that its ambassador to Moscow would be present, reportedly infuriating the Russian government.

“It is entirely up to you whether you want to reach the conclusion that there is a relationship between the two things,” a senior Israeli official told The Media Line, referring to the Second World War commemoration and Russia’s decision to supply Iran with S-300 missiles.

But other analysts said that Israel wanted to find a way to express its anger with the planned sale of the S-300 missiles.

“Israel is between a rock and a hard place,” Efraim Karsh of Bar Ilan University told The Media Line. “The Americans are not sending anyone. At the same time, we don’t want to undermine our relations with Russia, which are important. We are trying to show our displeasure with the missile deal while keeping relations on course.”

We are trying to show our displeasure with the missile deal while keeping relations on course

The Israeli official said there is tension over the Russian decision to lift the ban on supplying Iran with the S-300 missiles. Russia insists that as they are defensive they should not be included in the sanctions that Iran is still under. The Russian deal to supply Iran with the missiles was signed in 2007, but held up until now. The decision to lift the ban comes as Iran and the international community are moving closer to a deal that would lift many of the sanctions on Iran in exchange for severely curtailing its nuclear program and agreeing to international inspections. Israel has vehemently opposed any deal, saying that Iran has lied to the international community before, and is set on becoming a nuclear power. Israel’s strong stance has sparked tensions between Israel and its chief ally, the U.S.

JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin will not be attending.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu phoned Putin last week, and the two men spoke for over an hour. Over the weekend, Netanyahu demanded that Russia halt the planned delivery of the air defense system to Iran, warning that “Israel will do whatever is necessary to defend the security of the state and its citizens,” Netanyahu said, adding that Tehran held a military parade this week.

“Every year the missiles are bigger and enhanced — in accuracy, strength and deadliness,” the Prime Minister said “However one thing does not change. What does not change is the inscription “Death to Israel” on the missiles.”

Despite Russia’s announcement, it was not clear if or when Iran would get the missiles.

“Israel has definitely planned for this, but it is still an obstacle,” Azriel Bermant, an analyst at the Institute for National Security Studies told The Media Line. “Hezbullah or Syria could get hold of these missiles which could be problematic for Israel.”

Putin stepped up the rhetoric, warning Israel not to supply weapons to the Ukraine. Bermant said that as far as he knows there are no concrete plans to sell weapons to Ukraine.

“Back in September there were reports that Israel was about to sell to Ukraine but it didn’t happen because Israel wanted Russia on its side,’ Berman said. “I don’t see any real interest in selling to Ukraine.”

KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/Getty ImagesRussian soldiers, wearing replica uniforms, march in Saint-Petersburg, during the Victory Day parade on May 9, 2010.

It is impossible to know for certain whether the draft deal reached between Washington and Iran would in fact restrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Few details are known, and many have yet even to be agreed upon.

Despite the outpouring of reaction – accolades on one side, condemnation on the other – the agreement remains a preliminary measure that reflects a general concurrence on the basic foundation of an accord. The nitty gritty won’t be evident until the end of June, when the fine print is due. It may be that the two sides don’t get there. Even agreement on the preliminary document required a two-day extension of a self-imposed deadline. Much phony drama accompanied the final sprint – diplomats whisking in and out of meeting rooms, all-night sessions involving bleary-eyed envoys, roller-coaster remarks reflecting professions of hope or despair.

Mr. Obama seems uncertain even “progressives” will back his plan.

You almost suspect they do it on purpose: diplomats get few moments in the spotlight, so when they do they must enjoy it. When was the last time an international accord was reached without the same sort of high-wire theatrics? It all smells of artifice: Washington and Tehran have been at each other’s throats for 35 years; just getting delegations into the same room required a temporary suspension of historic enmities. There was never a chance they were going to end the session without resort to some display of self-congratulatory fervour.

AP Photo/Richard DrewPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's denunciation of the deal was to be expected.

That doesn’t mean anything lasting was achieved. President Barack Obama made an unfortunate choice of words when he proclaimed the deal “our best bet by far to make sure Iran doesn’t get a nuclear weapon.” The prospect of Iran obtaining a bomb is far too horrifying a prospect for the western world to risk any sort of “bet” on it, not matter how promising the odds. The remark echoes Brian Mulroney’s ill-timed suggestion that Canada “roll the dice” on the Meech Lake Accord. If the bet goes bad the U.S. might not be in any worse situation than it is now, but for Israel it represents the prospect of annihilation.

Mr. Obama launched his campaign to sell the pact on the weekend, giving a lengthy interview to New York Times’ columnist Thomas Friedman. Neither the publication nor the interviewer could have been chosen to win over conservatives; if anything they suggest Mr. Obama isn’t sure he can even count on “progressives” to back his plan. Those doubts are reflected in his effort to allay any suspicion Washington was gulled at the negotiating table.

“Even for somebody who believes, as I suspect Prime Minister Netanyahu believes, that there is no difference between Rouhani and the supreme leader and they’re all adamantly anti-West and anti-Israel and perennial liars and cheaters — even if you believed all that, this still would be the right thing to do,” he asserted. If Tehran lies or cheats, sanctions will be “snapped” back into place. If international monitors are faced with obstruction or evasion, the whole deal can be dropped in an instant. The U.S. defence budget is 20 times Iran’s: “Iran understands that they cannot fight us,” he said.

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Unfortunately, we can’t take him at his word. We haven’t been told how quickly sanctions would be lifted on Iran, only that it would depend on how quickly they comply with their promises. The notion that the complex web of sanctions – which took years to organize and impose – could be turned on and off like a light switch strains credibility. The U.S. certainly has much more military firepower than Iran could ever muster, but would it use it? Could Americans face a prolonged war across much of the Middle East that would almost certainly involve U.S. ground troops? The U.S. enjoyed overwhelming superiority to Saddam Hussein’s forces as well, and that example hardly serves as a recommendation for more of the same.

Iran is a far bigger threat than Saddam ever was. It is worth noting that the deepest sense of disquiet about the nuclear pact lies in those countries that are geographically closest to Iran. That Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would denounce it was a foregone conclusion – anything less than wholesale capitulation by Tehran wouldn’t have satisfied Mr. Netanyahu. But other powers within Iran’s ambit share his unease: The BBC reports that Pakistan has already produced nuclear weapons for shipment to Saudi Arabia at a moment’s notice. Prince Turki al-Faisal, Riyadh’s former intelligence chief, says Saudi Arabia will match whatever gains Iran makes in acquiring a weapon. Speculation that the deal will set off an arms race are outdated – the race has already begun. And if the Saudis can have a bomb, Iran’s determination to get one is only going to increase.

It comes down to this: No one can feel comfortable that any sort of deal with Iran makes the world a safer and more secure place. All the protestations of good intentions don’t change the underlying threat. Even if the pact were a success, it would only delay Tehran’s capabilities. In half a generation, they could announce they had kept their bargain, and fire up the centrifuges again. At that point Mr. Obama’s “best bet” may seem a sorry wager.
National Post

Top Obama administration officials launched a major sales pitch on Sunday aimed at marshaling public support for the new framework agreement between Iran and several world powers over its nuclear program, even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to American airwaves to blast the accord.

The fight to shape public perceptions of the deal could have major implications for its survival, with congressional Republicans pushing for the right to accept or reject any final pact. The White House has already warned that the president would veto legislation the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is poised to take up this month that would withhold sanctions relief for Iran under the final deal until lawmakers had a 60-day period to review and vote on it.

We have blocked all of these pathways to a bomb, and we should also emphasize this is not a 10-year deal

Netanyahu appeared on three major networks — ABC, NBC and CNN — while U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz went on CBS’s “Face the Nation” and deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes appeared on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS.” Multiple Republican and Democratic senators also delivered their assessments of the framework agreement — largely divided along party lines — on several Sunday shows.

Even before a deal was struck last week, the administration’s top negotiators had been preparing to defend any agreement from the political onslaught they knew it would face in the halls of Congress and in Jerusalem.

“We have blocked all of these pathways to a bomb, and we should also emphasize this is not a 10-year deal,” Moniz, one of the deal’s key negotiators, said on CBS. “This is a long-term arrangement.”

But Netanyahu called it “a historically bad deal” on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” suggesting it would lead to both a conventional and nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

“I think this deal is a dream deal for Iran and a nightmare deal for the world,” the Israeli leader said.

Netanyahu argued that the United State could have brokered a better deal and still has the option of doing so by ratcheting up the pressure of sanctions against Iran.

“I think that what they don’t accept today, they can accept tomorrow,” he said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.”

Key GOP senators — including Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker of Tennessee and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — echoed that sentiment, saying they would work to alter any agreement by using the leverage they hold over lifting some of the sanctions now in place.

Graham called President Barack Obama “a flawed negotiator” in an interview on CBS, adding that without the “baggage of Obama,” the next president — regardless of party — would be able to secure a stronger deal.

Corker identified multiple “red flags” in the framework agreement, including what elements would be considered before international sanctions on Iran are lifted and the uncertainty surrounding what process would be in place for the International Atomic Energy Agency to conduct inspections.

Still, the tentative agreement might have provided the administration with crucial breathing room by undercutting support among Democrats for legislation that could imperil further negotiations.

“The whole purpose of this exercise was to demonstrate progress in order to fend off congressional action,” said Gary Samore, a former nuclear arms adviser to Obama who is now the executive director for research at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

It’s true that this deal doesn’t turn Iran from a bad guy into a good guy

While several Democrats have also suggested that Congress should be able to vote any Iran agreement up or down — input Corker described Sunday as Congress’s “rightful role” — key lawmakers within the president’s party offered their support Sunday.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the nuclear framework was “a better agreement, candidly, than I thought it was ever going to be” and that she would not support Corker’s bill in its current form.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., noted on NBC that other sanctions — including over Iran’s ballistic missile program, the country’s support for terrorism and record on human rights — will remain in place even if the framework agreement is finalized. And he pushed back against the criticism that the deal does nothing to alter the behavior of a country Netanyahu repeatedly called the “preeminent terrorist state of our time.”

“It’s true that this deal doesn’t turn Iran from a bad guy into a good guy,” Murphy said. “But it’s a little bit of rewriting of history to suggest these negotiations were about all of the other nefarious activities of Iran in the region. These negotiations were about ending their nuclear program, such that we can start to lift up the moderate elements . . .(and) talk about all these other issues.”

Any hopes that the Israeli election would lead to a new initiative for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have been dashed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s election for a fourth term. The disappointment is especially acute among Israel’s neighbors, Egypt and Jordan, which remain the only two countries which have a peace treaty with Israel.

“This is Mr. Netanyahu’s fourth term, and if he was serious about a peace settlement he would have done it a lot earlier than this,” Marwan Muasher, a former Jordanian foreign minister and currently with the Carnegie Center for Middle East Peace, told The Media Line. “I still remember when (former Israeli Prime Minister) Yitzhak Rabin came into office. It was clear from Day One that he was actively pursuing a peace settlement. Mr. Netanyahu has been dragged into negotiations every time.”

Mr. Rabin and then Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo peace accords in 1993 – which laid out a framework for a comprehensive peace agreement. Mr. Rabin was assassinated in 1994 by an extremist Jew.

More than two-thirds of Jordan’s population is Palestinian, and hardliners in Israel have said that the Palestinian state should be created in Jordan instead of in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
“Netanyahu’s statements against a two-state solution set off alarm bells in Jordan,” Mr. Muasher said. “Jordan has long been concerned that if there are not two states, a solution could come at its expense.”

He said that despite the government’s frustration with Mr. Netanyahu, Israel and Jordan shared a fear of radical Islam growing and taking root, and would cooperate to stop that.

Palestinian experts say they were hoping that the Zionist Union, led by Yitzhak Herzog would win the election.

“Herzog and (former Justice Minister Tzippi) Livni really want to see a two-state solution and Netanyahu doesn’t,” Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestinian government spokesman told The Media Line. “I think that is the fundamental difference between them.”

AFP/Egyptian PresidencyUS Secretary of State John Kerry, Jordanian King Abdullah II, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas meeting in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Mr. Netanyahu caused waves throughout the Arab world when he backed away from a previous acceptance of an independent Palestinian state in the days leading up to the Israeli election. That zig-zag sparked harsh American criticism of Mr. Netanyahu and a promise to “re-evaluate” the U.S. position. There is concern in Israel that it will mean a decision not to back Israel in international organizations like the United Nations. There has been speculation that the U.S. will not veto a Security Council resolution that calls for a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders with land swaps.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told the liberal lobby group J Street that Palestinians will turn to international organizations like the UN because Mr. Netanyahu has shown that he is not interested in helping create an independent state.

“Netanyahu is not a two-stater,” Mr. Erekat said. “That is why we thought to ourselves, ‘what do we do to save the two-state solution?’ and so we went to the United Nations.”

Israel has long said that it prefers a bilateral solution through direct negotiations and not to go through the UN, which it sees as biased against Israel.

Tensions between the U.S. and Israel deepened further over a Wall Street Journal report that Israel had spied on closed-door conversations between the U.S. and the international community over the Iranian nuclear program, a report the Israeli Defence Minister vehemently denied.

In the Gulf, analysts said they share a concern with Israel that Iran will become a nuclear power. There had been speculation that Saudi Arabia, along with Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE would support an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program if Israel decided to do so. However, it seems that the opportunity for an Israeli military strike has passed, given that Iran is now in negotiations with the U.S. on a deal to curtail its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions being lifted.

Egypt, too, does not want Iran to become a nuclear power, fearing it could spark a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Egyptian and Israeli ties remain close, with intense security cooperation. Yet journalist and analyst Hisham Kassem says that the continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict means that the Egyptian army must remain on high alert, and cannot refocus to fight the growing extremist Islamist terrorist threat in the Sinai Peninsula. Dozens of Egyptian soldiers and police have been killed recently.

“The army really needs to turn into a counter-terrorism force and it can’t do that as long as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues,” Mr. Kassem told The Media Line. “With all of the cooperation between Israel and Egypt, a war could still break out.”

Mr. Kassem said he was surprised when Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said he frequently speaks with Mr. Netanyahu. At the same time, he said, he does not believe that Mr. Sisi has called the Prime Minister since the Israeli election.

Hello, it’s good to be back. At least I think it is. Ask me again in a week or two. Meanwhile, thanks for scores of kindly get-well cards. I’d challenge anybody not to feel better after letters as generous as some readers sent me. I’d much enjoy quoting a few, but my editors may think it’s too self-indulgent.

While I was on my health (read: sickness) holiday for a few months, the world has been up to its old trick of changing much without changing at all. The French critic Alphonse Kerr’s hoary bon mot, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,” is turning out to be the most accurate observation of human affairs.

The Israeli election last week surprised many, but none as much as Western devotees of the centre-left Zionist Union Party. They persuaded themselves that, although the contest might go to the wire, in the end the voters would bless the left’s Isaac Herzog. Instead, it went the other way and it wasn’t even close. Centre-right Likud leader Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s last-minute feint to the right settled the matter. It was a brilliant move. Usually right-wingers, when they think they’re behind, try to outflank their opponents on the left. Not this time. During the last days of the election campaign Netanyahu declared that he would stop playing the charade of the “two-state solution.”

Good for Bibi, said a lot of voters. The process was a sham, from Madrid (1991) to Annapolis (2007) and beyond. Not because two states may not be the best, perhaps the only, solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but because the Arab/Muslim side was never serious about it. The Palestinians could have had their state all along if their aim had been coexistence with the Jewish state and not its elimination. They could have had a Palestinian state before a Jewish state ever came into being, by accepting the Peel Commission’s recommendations for partition in 1936. But Israel’s opponents had zero interest in the peace process except as a ruse and a propaganda tool. For them peace would mean Israel’s achievement of its war-aim: Existence. That was something with which the Arab/Muslim world could not come to terms.

All this is hardly news. “Few things can be stated with certainty about the Middle East, but there’s little doubt that if the peace process had been in good health — indeed, if it hadn’t been on the critical list — Netanyahu wouldn’t have been elected prime minister in the first place.” I had occasion to write these lines 18 years ago, not long after another Israeli election that ended in Netanyahu’s victory.

The 1996 election between Netanyahu’s Likud and Labor’s Shimon Peres should have been a shoo-in for Peres. Israel’s voters went to the polls after a smirking Jewish fanatic named Yigal Amir had assassinated Labor Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The former commander-in-chief had started implementing the 1993 Oslo Accords, halting Jewish settlements on the West Bank, the land Israeli troops under his command had secured for the Jewish state during the 1967 Six Day War. Implementing Oslo cost Rabin his life, without doing anything for peace and Israel’s security. Terrorist bus bombings and rocket attacks continued after 1993 as if Oslo had never happened.

If no buses had been blown up in Tel Aviv and no rockets had been fired on Israeli settlements after Oslo, Peres would almost certainly have won the 1996 election. It was the Arab terrorists who campaigned most effectively for Netanyahu (just as the Israeli lunatic who assassinated Rabin campaigned most effectively for Peres). In the end, it was the Arab terrorists who waged the better campaign.

When the U.S.-inspired negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis that we call “the peace process” first began in Madrid 24 years ago, I commented that if Israel never existed there would still be conflict and mayhem in the Middle East. The region is troubled because its political and social culture is mired somewhere in 1000 AD.

As I filed my last piece before my medical holiday last year, the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham was just making its entrance on the world stage. Most publications hadn’t yet settled on whether to call it ISIS or ISIL. Today, after only six months, it’s the most prominent, bold and brutal of the warring factions in the region. All the same, it’s nothing new. The latest item in the cultural furnishing of the Levant doesn’t change the decor. Pundits who initially wondered what the Arab Spring would bring when it started in Tunisia did not have to wonder for long. The Arab Spring brought ISIS. It brought civil war to Syria and Iraq, with over 200,000 casualties. It brought Egypt to the brink of a medieval-style theocracy, before reverting to a mere military dictatorship. By now it has started to make us feel nostalgic for Moammar Gadhafi in Libya. Most recently it devastated Yemen and produced 23 dead European tourists as it returned to square one in Tunisia where it started less than five years ago.

The Arab and Muslim world is guided by ideas and emotions, religious as well as secular, that never got past the Middle Ages. They aren’t the Arab/Muslim world’s only ideas and emotions, of course, but they are the guiding ones. For Israel to trade land for peace in such a climate is, if anything, detrimental to peace. Expecting Palestinians to stop attacking Israel by distributing land to them is like expecting sharks to stop attacking swimmers by pouring blood into the water.

The question was never whether Israel would give land for peace, but whether it could get peace for land. The answer is possibly yes, one day, but not yet. Israelis want peace because they know they can’t get a better deal, but the Arab/Muslim world still thinks it can. Netanyahu says the time to negotiate is when Israel’s opponents realize that peace is the best deal available to all. I agree — and, it seems, so do most Israelis.

WASHINGTON — Israel obtained sensitive information about the nuclear talks between Iran and the United States and turned it over to members of Congress, the Wall Street Journal is reporting. The insider details came from “confidential” briefings from U.S. officials as well as from “informants, diplomatic contacts in Europe and eavesdropping,” the paper said.

Citing “current and former officials,” the paper said the “spying operation was part of a broader campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to penetrate the negotiations and then help build a case against the emerging terms of the deal.”

The Journal, in its Tuesday edition, reported the “espionage” did not concern the White House “as much as Israel’s sharing of inside information with U.S. lawmakers and others to drain support” for a possible deal with Iran to rein in Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for easing of international sanctions.

The White House learned of the operation, the paper reported, when U.S. intelligence agencies “intercepted communications among Israeli officials that carried details the U.S. believed could have come only from access to the confidential talks, officials briefed on the matter said.”

Israeli defence minister Moshe Yaalon on Tuesday denied that his country spied on the United States’ handling of sensitive negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

Yaalon said “there is no way” that Israel spied on its closest and most important ally and noted the U.S. has never complained to Israel about the alleged spying.

But the Journal said its story was based on interviews with “more than a dozen” officials, including Israeli diplomats, intelligence officials and lawmakers.

Relations between the administration of President Obama and the government of Israel have become openly hostile since Netanyahu accepted an invitation from House Speaker John Boehner to address the U.S. Congress earlier this month.

The chill deepened during Netanyahu’s come-from-behind election victory last week. Just before the vote — with polls showing Netanyahu’s Likud party trailing — Netanyahu reached out to his right-wing base by appearing to reject the possibility of a Palestinian state. On election day, he then appealed to his backers to cast ballots to counter “droves” of Arab Israeli voters who likely supported his challenger.

Netanyahu later tried to massage his stance on the the so-called two-state solution — the cornerstone of peace efforts led by Washington — by saying he could support the idea if the region’s security situation improved in the future. He also sought to calm anger among Israel’s Arab population. But a prominent Arab-Israeli politicians, Ahmed Tibi, said Tuesday that many rejected Netanyahu’s outreach as “not an honest apology.”

If the Journal’s story is accurate, there were plenty of other reasons for the tension as well.

It quoted a “senior U.S. official briefed on the matter,” saying that it is “one thing for the U.S. and Israel to spy on each other. It is another thing for Israel to steal U.S. secrets and play them back to U.S. legislators to undermine U.S. diplomacy.”

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized to Israel’s Arab citizens on Monday for remarks he made during last week’s parliament election that offended members of the community.

The move appeared to be an attempt to heal rifts and mute criticism at home and in the United States. Mr. Netanyahu drew accusations of racism in Israel, especially from its Arab minority, and a White House rebuke when, just a few hours before polling stations were to close across the country, he warned that Arab citizens were voting “in droves.”

Mr. Netanyahu, whose Likud Party won re-election in the vote, met with members of the Arab community at the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem on Monday and apologized.

He said he knows his “comments last week offended some Israeli citizens and offended members of the Israeli-Arab community.”

“This was never my intent. I apologize for this,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “I view myself as the prime minister of each and every citizen of Israel, without any prejudice based on religion, ethnicity or gender.”

“I view all Israeli citizens as partners in the building of a prosperous and safe state of Israel, for all Israelis,” he also said.

A recently established alliance of four small, mostly Arab parties called the Joint List made unprecedented gains in the March 17 election, earning enough votes to make it the third-largest party in Israel’s parliament. Arab citizens make up 20 % of Israel’s population. Equality is guaranteed in Israel’s laws but many Arabs have long complained of discrimination, mainly in the job and housing market.

Ayman Odeh, the head of the Joint List, told channel 2 TV that Mr. Netanyahu’s apology was not accepted.

“This is not a real apology,” Mr. Odeh said. “He incited against citizens who were exercising their basic right to vote for Knesset.”

AP Photo/Dan BaliltyArab citizens, who make up 20% of Israel’s population, have long complained of discrimination.

Mr. Odeh also accused Mr. Netanyahu of “zig-zagging” by saying one thing one day and a different another.

In the final days of the campaign, Mr. Netanyahu angered the U.S. by taking a tough stance toward the Palestinians and by saying a Palestinian state will not be established on his watch in the current climate of regional chaos and violence. Resolving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in a two state solution is a key U.S. foreign policy priority.

The tough talk was part of a last-ditch attempt by Mr. Netanyahu to spur his more hard-line supporters to the polls after it appeared he was losing voters to a more hawkish party.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters Monday that she had not seen the Netanyahu apology but that the Israeli prime minister is hard to read because “he said diametrically opposing things in the matter of a week.”

“When you say things, words matter. And if you say something different two days later, which do we believe,” she said. “What we’re looking for now are actions and policies.”

AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean/FilesAyman Odeh, head of the Joint List: “This is not a real apology.”

U.S. President Barack Obama’s chief of staff rejected Mr. Netanyahu’s attempts to distance himself from his comments rejecting Palestinian statehood, telling an Israel advocacy group Monday that the U.S. can’t just overlook what Mr. Netanyahu said on the eve of his re-election.

In a speech to J Street, an Israel advocacy group that is sharply critical of Mr. Netanyahu, White House chief of staff Denis McDonough also warned Israel against annexing the West Bank, where Palestinians hope to establish their future state.

He said Mr. Netanyahu’s prediction that a Palestinian state wouldn’t come about on his watch were “so very troubling” and called into question Mr. Netanyahu’s broader commitment to the two-state solution the U.S. and Israel have officially supported for years.

“We cannot simply pretend that these comments were never made,” Mr. McDonough said.

Mr. Netanyahu defended his election-day remarks in the days after the vote. He told NBC last Thursday that he remains committed to Palestinian statehood — if conditions in the region improve — and to the two-state vision first spelled out in a landmark 2009 speech at Israel’s Bar Ilan University. “I haven’t changed my policy,” he said. “I never retracted my speech.”

He told NBC that his government has spent billions in Arab towns to upgrade infrastructure, schools and narrow gaps.

Earlier Monday, Mr. Netanyahu secured a majority of backers in the new parliament and will later be tasked with forming the next government.

Israel’s ceremonial president, Reuven Rivlin, has been meeting with the parties in parliament to hear their recommendations before appointing who will form the next coalition government. Kulanu, a new centrist party gave its nod to Mr. Netanyahu on Monday, giving him 61 backers out of the 120 in parliament.

Mr. Netanyahu appears poised to set up a coalition with hawkish, centrist and religious parties.

WASHINGTON— The U.S. is weighing a new approach to Middle East peace that may be less supportive of Israel, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised doubts that he would ever accept a Palestinian state.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said on Israeli radio Sunday that if it’s impossible to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians as long as Mr. Netanyahu is prime minister, the question arises “what other steps can be taken to continue in the right direction of attaining two states for two peoples.”

Mr. Netanyahu said the day before Israel’s March 17 election that there would be no Palestinian state if he returned to office. After winning the vote he softened his stance, saying he wanted a two-state solution but “circumstances have to change.” The official process of forming a new government began on Sunday.

President Barack Obama’s administration has signalled it may reconsider its policy of siding with Israel in votes at the United Nations Security Council, where the U.S. frequently blocks resolutions opposed by Israel.

Despite calls by Reuven Rivlin, Israel’s president, to begin a “healing process” following the bitterly contested election, Mr. Obama refused to allow Mr. Netanyahu to take back comments ruling out a Palestinian state.

“We take him at his word when he said that it wouldn’t happen during his prime ministership,” Mr. Obama said in an interview, reiterating that his administration would now “evaluate what other options are available.”

Mr. Obama’s remarks reflected deep anger in the administration at Mr. Netanyahu’s comments apparently ruling out a two-state solution, as well as his racially charged warning to the Israeli Right that Israeli Arabs were voting “in droves.”

“We indicated that that kind of rhetoric was contrary to what is the best of Israel’s traditions,” Mr. Obama told The Huffington Post in an interview published Saturday, arguing that Mr. Netanyahu’s remarks had undermined the fabric of Israeli democracy.

“Although Israel was founded based on the historic Jewish homeland and the need to have a Jewish homeland, Israeli democracy has been premised on everybody in the country being treated equally and fairly,” he added.

Mr. Obama rejected public attempts by Mr. Netanyahu to clarify his position in a series of television interviews in which the Israeli prime minister said he was merely observing that a two-state solution was not viable in the current conditions, rather than ruling it out in principle.

Even Mr. Netanyahu’s allies expressed concern about the depth of the rift now separating the Israeli and U.S. leaders and the potential damage to a relationship that has provided a cornerstone of the Middle East for more than 60 years.

“If the Americans are finding it difficult to understand or accept our clarifications, this is certainly worrying and requires tending to,” said Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s strategic affairs minister, and a close Netanyahu ally.

On the Israeli left, Amos Yadlin, a former chief of Israeli military intelligence aligned with Zionist Union party, which lost the vote to Mr. Netanyahu, warned that Israel would “pay a price” for Mr. Netanyahu’s position on Palestinian statehood.

“They used a word that they haven’t used since 1975 — a ’reassessment’ of relations,” Mr. Yadlin said after a visit to Washington.

He predicted that while Mr. Obama would stop short of sanctions, life would be “much harder” for Israel in the diplomatic arena.

The U.S. vetoes at the UN Security Council were “predicated on this idea that the two-state solution is the best outcome,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Thursday. “Now our ally in these talks has said that they are no longer committed to that solution. That means we need to reevaluate our position.”

The U.S. has helped to block Security Council resolutions condemning Israeli activities such as settlement building in the West Bank, and ensure the UN body withholds recognition of a Palestinian state. It has also opposed efforts to file complaints over alleged Israeli war crimes to the International Criminal Court, which the Palestinians will join on April 1.
Mr. Shapiro said the U.S. has “not yet reached any decisions” about its new course.

Republican Senator John McCain said Israel’s election was “free and fair” and urged Mr. Obama to work with Mr. Netanyahu.

“Get over your temper tantrum, Mr. President — it’s time we work together with our Israeli friends” against Islamist groups in the region, Mr. McCain said on CNN.

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper has reiterated Canada’s support for a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians during a phone call to newly re-elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The statement from Harper’s office on Sunday was more muted than statements made recently by U.S. President Barack Obama, French President Francois Hollande and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

It was the first time Harper and Netanyahu had spoken since Netanyahu secured a victory on Tuesday. Harper congratulated his counterpart for the re-election, his office said.

In the final days of the hotly contested campaign, Netanyahu said he would not support the creation of an independent Palestinian state. That position flew in the face of that traditionally taken by the U.S., Europe and Canada.

A statement from the prime minister’s office said that Harper had reiterated the government’s “resolute commitment” to Israel’s security.

“We indicated that that kind of rhetoric was contrary to what is the best of Israel’s traditions. That although Israel was founded based on the historic Jewish homeland and the need to have a Jewish homeland, Israeli democracy has been premised on everybody in the country being treated equally and fairly,” Obama told the Huffington Post on Friday.

“And I think that that is what’s best about Israeli democracy. If that is lost, then I think that not only does it give ammunition to folks who don’t believe in a Jewish state, but it also I think starts to erode the meaning of democracy in the country.”

French foreign minister Laurent Fabius said Friday that President Francois Holland had emphasized to Netanyahu Israel’s responsiblity vis-a-vis regional stability.

“Only the creation of a viable and sovereign Palestinian state, living peacefully and securely side-by-side with Israel, can allow us to ensure peace and prosperity in the Middle East,” said Fabius.

Of all the idiocies uttered in reaction to Benjamin Netanyahu’s stunning election victory, none is more ubiquitous than the idea that peace prospects are now dead because Netanyahu has declared that there will be no Palestinian state while he is Israel’s prime minister.

I have news for the lowing herds: There would be no peace and no Palestinian state if Isaac Herzog were prime minister either. Or Ehud Barak or Ehud Olmert for that matter. The latter two were (non-Likud) prime ministers who offered the Palestinians their own state — with its capital in Jerusalem and every Israeli settlement in the new Palestine uprooted — only to be rudely rejected.

This is not ancient history. This is 2000, 2001 and 2008 — three astonishingly concessionary peace offers within the past 15 years. Every one rejected.

The fundamental reality remains: This generation of Palestinian leadership — from Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas — has never and will never sign its name to a final peace settlement dividing the land with a Jewish state. And without that, no Israeli government of any kind will agree to a Palestinian state.

Today, however, there is a second reason a peace agreement is impossible: the supreme instability of the entire Middle East. For half a century, it was run by dictators no one liked but with whom you could do business. For example, the 1974 Israel-Syria disengagement agreement yielded more than four decades of near-total quiet on the border because the Assad dictatorships so decreed.

That authoritarian order is gone. Syria is wracked by a multi-sided civil war that has killed 200,000 people and that has al-Qaida allies, Hezbollah fighters, government troops and even the occasional Iranian general prowling the Israeli border. Who inherits? No one knows.

Related

In the past four years, Egypt has had two revolutions and three radically different regimes. Yemen went from pro-American to Iranian client so quickly the U.S. had to evacuate its embassy in a panic. Libya has gone from Moammar Gadhafi’s crazy authoritarianism to jihadi-dominated civil war. On Wednesday, Tunisia, the one relative success of the Arab Spring, suffered a major terror attack that the prime minister said “targets the stability of the country.”

From Mali to Iraq, everything is in flux. Amid this mayhem, by what magic would the West Bank, riven by a bitter Fatah-Hamas rivalry, be an island of stability? What would give any Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement even a modicum of durability?

There was a time when Arafat commanded the Palestinian movement the way Gadhafi commanded Libya. Abbas commands no one. Why do you think he is in the 11th year of a four-year term, having refused to hold elections for the past five years? Because he’s afraid he would lose to Hamas.

With or without elections, the West Bank could fall to Hamas overnight. At which point fire rains down on Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion Airport and the entire Israeli urban heartland — just as it rains down on southern Israel from Gaza when it suits Hamas.

Any Arab-Israeli peace settlement would require Israel to make dangerous and inherently irreversible territorial concessions on the West Bank in return for promises and guarantees. Under current conditions, these would be written on sand.

Israel is ringed by jihadi terrorists in Sinai, Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Islamic State and Iranian proxies in Syria, and a friendly but highly fragile Jordan. Israelis have no idea who ends up running any of these places.

Well, say the critics. Israel could be given outside guarantees. Guarantees? Like the 1994 Budapest Memorandum in which the U.S., Britain and Russia guaranteed Ukraine’s “territorial integrity?” Like the red line in Syria? Like the unanimous UN resolutions declaring illegal any Iranian enrichment of uranium — now effectively rendered null?

Peace awaits three things: eventual Palestinian acceptance of a Jewish state; a Palestinian leader willing to sign a deal based on that premise; and a modicum of regional stability that allows Israel to risk the potentially fatal withdrawals such a deal would entail.

I believe such a day will come. But there is zero chance it comes now or even soon. That’s essentially what Netanyahu said in explaining — and softening — on Thursday his no-Palestinian-state statement.

In the interim, I understand the crushing disappointment of the Obama administration and its media poodles at the spectacular success of the foreign leader they loathe more than any other on the planet. The consequent seething and sputtering are understandable, if unseemly. Blaming Netanyahu for banishing peace, however, is mindless.

Israel’s politics have a way of surprising the world but the results of this week’s election have astonished everyone who cares about the future of the Jewish state and the Middle East.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s emergence as the reconfirmed prime minister of Israel confounded pollsters and pundits who believed that this time he was in trouble. His right-wing Likud Party won 30 seats, six more than the liberal Zionist Union, putting him in position to create a stable ruling coalition for his fourth term as prime minister.

But a second surprise was far larger, the change this election wrought in Netanyahu’s personality, style and stature.

He went into the campaign as a man of totally confident views, a leader with the courage to stand before the U.S. Congress and tell President Barack Obama that he had Iran dangerously wrong and was making a potentially tragic mistake in the negotiations with Tehran over nuclear weapons.

But by the end of this week Netanyahu looked like a self-contradictory and evasive mind-changer, another politician whose real opinions have become even more obscure. It’s often said that over the years he’s transformed the politics of Israel to suit his own views. This week we saw politics abruptly transform Netanyahu.

The election was a referendum on his leadership. He has many enemies in his own country, notably the traditionalists who still believe the Labour Party, or something like it, is the only organization worthy of running the country. But his enemies elsewhere are far more worrisome. In recent years Europeans have shown steadily less affection for Israel and Netanyahu’s policies. In the U.S., the pro-Obama media called Netanyahu’s speech to Congress a grab for votes back home. In Israel, much of the media took a similar view, and warned that his criticism of Obama damaged U.S.-Israel relations.

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Nothing in the voting on Tuesday suggested that these opinions bothered the electorate. The results demonstrated that rightward-tilting Israelis are unworried by his lack of popularity elsewhere. His sharp focus on security is what they want in a prime minister.

They appear to have welcomed his thunderbolt announcement, his sudden, last-minute disavowal of the two-state solution.

In the endlessly prolonged “peace process,” the two-state solution is usually untouchable. Regiments of international diplomats believe that dividing the territory into two states, Palestinian and Jewish, will bring peace to both.

Likud has never loved the idea, and for years no one considered Netanyahu a believer. But in 2009, presumably under pressure from the U.S., he declared his conditional support for it. He wanted a guarantee that the Palestinian side would be demilitarized, and that the Palestinians would recognize Israel as a Jewish state, something they have never been willing to do.

Every family, soldier, citizen, Jewish or not are important to me! We will form a strong government to work for them.

So, in the dreams cherished by diplomats, talks involving Israel and the Palestinians stumble, haltingly, towards this desired goal. Or they did, until Monday night, election eve. In the last gasp of the campaign, Netanyahu announced a change of mind. He was now opposed to a Palestinian state. He’s decided it would provide a base for attacks on Israel. He said that his opponents on the left, who favour a Palestinian state, are “sticking their head in the sand.”

Apparently he was desperate to strengthen the resolve of his followers, but there’s something innately irresponsible about announcing a change in national policy just before a national election.

In his defence we should understand that the two-state idea has never had much chance of becoming reality. More Israelis have believed in it than Palestinians; in fact, there’s little evidence of a Palestinian leader ever taking it seriously. If it looked good to the Palestinians they could have made a step toward it by recognizing Israel as a Jewish state — and that’s never been considered. Perhaps Netanyahu, as he often says, is simply realistic.

A statement issued by the White House said that Obama emphasized America’s ‘long-standing commitment to a two-state solution’

Even so, he might be changing again. Obama, calling to congratulate Netanyahu on his victory, mentioned that the U.S. plans to “reassess” its relationship with Israel, in light of Netanyahu’s comments. A statement issued by the White House said that Obama emphasized America’s “long-standing commitment to a two-state solution.”

Shortly after, Netanyahu modified his views. He said he was reacting to changes in the Palestinian Authority, such as President Mahmoud Abbas’s plan to form a unity government with Hamas, a terrorist organization. He said what he really wants is “a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution. I haven’t changed my policy.”

Now he must somehow reconcile his various opinions to the public, the Knesset, the diplomats and the U.S. The political mood of Israel is dangerous, perhaps most dangerous to those who believe they can manipulate it.

Re: Netanyahu’s Challenge, editorial; He Just Keeps Winning, Janine Zacharia, both, March 19; ‘I Don’t Want A One-State Solution': Netanyahu, March 20The media have distorted the words of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He said: “I think that anyone who is going to establish a Palestinian state today and evacuate land is giving attack grounds to the radical Islam against the state of Israel.” This is not the same as saying he is against a two-state solution.

Rather, he is speaking truth to the matter: Israel cannot make peace with the Palestinians when they won’t recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and desire all the land of Israel, not just the Territories and East Jerusalem. To the Palestinians, Israel is part of the Islamic caliphate.Jerome Edelstein, Toronto.

At a time when, courtesy of U.S. President Barack Obama and his confounding quest for a lasting legacy, Iran’s fanatical theocrats will soon be able to create a nuke that has Israel’s name on it, the whole “should it be a one-state or a two-state solution?” issue has been rendered irrelevant. Unless someone — and at this stage it appears it will have to be Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu — does something to stop this nightmare scenario from unfolding, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will supply his own “solution.” And you can be certain that, like that of the Nazis, it will be a “final” one.Mindy G. Alter, Toronto.

Thursday’s editorial and Janine Zacharia’s article indicate a lack of understanding of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel and its enemies.

First, it is unlikely Mr. Netanyahu surprised the whole world by winning the election. It is much more likely political pundits seriously misread the Israeli position, then blamed him for their errors.

Second, he did not win because of “his deep voice, his charisma and his swagger.” He won because he appealed to those who recognized the dangers to Israel from the Palestinians, both inside and outside Israel, and from the Iranians and their proxies. It is unfair to describe Israeli centrists who recognize the dangers facing Israel, as the “hard right.”

Third, it is not Mr. Netanyahu but the irrational policies of U.S. President Barack Obama, who appears to support and justify much of Islamic terrorism, that is divisive to the U.S. and not only Israel but many of its allies. Finally, Mr. Netanyahu cannot be blamed for the lack of a peace agreement with the Palestinians. He only publicly and realistically recognized they do not want a long-term peace agreement.Jonathan Usher, Toronto.

Familiar complaint

Re: Hijab Yes, Niqab No, letter to the editor, March 20.The Conservative party’s hand-wringing over the niqab illustrates a profound ignorance of recent Canadian history, even on the part of the prime minister. In the lifetime of many living Canadians, women wearing such concealing and confining garments were frequently to be found running schools, hospitals and social agencies in virtually every city and many towns across Canada. They were called nuns. There were always a few bigots who said then much the same as what we are hearing now.Terry Downey, Saskatoon.

Apologist for Justin

Re: The Terrorism Debate Is All About Balance, letter to the editor, March 20.Shimon Koffler Fogel is confused about the position of the Liberal party and Justin Trudeau on Islamic extremism. One of Mr. Trudeau’s first political speeches was at the Reviving the Islamic Spirit meeting, which included sponsors of the Islamic militant group Hamas. In fact, Mr. Trudeau and his party have gone out of their way to pander to Iranian and other Muslim groups who are diametrically opposed to the interests of the Jewish community and Israel, and who make events like the Israel Apartheid Week and boycott, divestment and sanctions possible.

The Jewish people need someone who is clearly behind the survival of Israel and wants to defend it in a sea of Islamists killing their way through the minorities of the Middle East, starting wars with Israel and spreading their jihad into Europe and North America.

More than ever, there are horrific terror attacks on Jews and others. Is it asking too much for a Jewish leader to stop pandering and begin speaking with strength, dignity and wisdom? Instead, Mr. Fogel plays political games that show him for what he really is — the wannabe quisling head of the Jewish branch of the Liberal party.Gary Gerofsky, Dundas, Ont.

Send in the troops

Re: Mideast Extension May Be For Year, March 20.Not only should Canada’s mission in Iraq be continued, it should be expanded to commit ground troops. The Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham is not going away anytime soon. Because it is being virtually left unchecked by a neutered White House policy, it has expanded into Libya and Tunisia, with the recent attacks at a museum. Perhaps this country should take the lead — after all, we were fighting the Nazis long before the Yanks decided to step in.Stephen T. Flanagan, Ottawa.

Only in Ontario

Re: Brazil Sideswiped By Graft Scandal, Matthew Fisher, March 20.What’s the difference between Brazil and Ontario? Brazil is in political and social turmoil after still-breaking revelations about Operation Carwash, a bribe and corruption scam that saw politicians and bureaucrats steal an estimated US$1 billion (and counting) from national oil giant Petrobras, a scandal so big it is likely to bring down president Dilma Rousseff and her party.

In Ontario, we know the provincial Liberals used $1 billion to cancel gas plants for craven political reasons, then rushed to destroy emails as part of their Nixon-like coverup of the scandal. In Brazil, the people will demand a new government. In Ontario, we re-elected the Liberals. Peter Strachan, Oshawa, Ont.

Contempt for our values

Re: … Miller Was Right, letter to the editor, March 19.I feel I must add my voice to that of letter-writer Margaret Cochrane, when she states there is no need for MP Larry Miller to apologize for his remarks about wearing the niqab.

I, too, cannot understand the attitude of those who come to our country without any appreciation for its values, except the outrageous presumption they can treat those values with contempt and use our own civil liberties to force upon us mores that we do not observe.

It is this implied contempt for our society that is most galling. If I were to consider applying for citizenship in your country, I would first ask myself how welcome myself and my beliefs would be there. If my beliefs were contradictory to your general population, then I would abandon any emigration plans.Patrick MacKinnon, Victoria.

Just the facts

Re: Putting Words In Trudeau’s Mouth, John Moore, March 19.I was so pleased to read John Moore’s reasoned piece. It seems as though mere sound bites, accurate or not, are too often being substituted for reason these days. I am familiar with the “strange phenomenon” of fairly recent immigrants being among the most unwelcoming of Canadians, in current times, Muslims. As an 11th-generation native-born Canadian, now a senior citizen, I grew up learning about the treatment of Japanese Canadians and such incidents as the Komagata Maru refusal. Our country has become stronger since those episodes, surely. Thank you, John, for restoring my faith in the newspaper a bit.Carolyn Eaton, Petawawa, Ont.

It’s a good thing there are people like John Moore who can interpret Justin Trudeau’s pontifications. I’m convinced the narcissistic Justin loves the sound of his own voice so much he’s oblivious to what it’s saying.Jim Corder, Nanaimo, B.C.

Why Zeihan got it wrong

Re: 51st State Of America, March 19.Peter Zeihan should get a new crystal ball — the one he uses now is feeding him nonsense. He claims to be a forecaster, but doesn’t show us his forecasting record. He cites many reasons why Alberta would be better off as a U.S. state, but he overlooks the most important reason it couldn’t leave, patriotism. Albertans, like most Canadians, love Canada.William Bedford, Newmarket, Ont.

Publicity stunt?

Re: They Have Neither The Law Nor The Facts, Michael Spratt, March 18.I am sick and tired of the space given to Zunera Ishaq’s refusal to remove her niqab when taking the citizenship oath. She has said she takes it off for driver’s licence and passport photos, and so custom officials can verify her identity. I think all she wanted was publicity, which she got in spades.

Michael Spratt argues majority approval is not justification for the law. It seems to me that idea was turned on its head with the Magna Carta. If the courts go against the government, I hope they invoke the notwithstanding clause.Dave Zelmer, West Vancouver, B.C.

CRTC’s trickle-down theory

Re: More Pay Than Picks, Terence Corcoran, March 20.We are still waiting to enjoy the benefits of the past two decisions of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission that purported to favour the average citizen: banning unsolicited telephone solicitation, and restrictions on raising the sound level on TV and radio during commercial messages. Will this new decision for pick-and-pay TV channels have the same waiting period?Tom Byerley, Ottawa.

‘Nous’ round his neck

Re: Péladeau Makes Ethnic Link, March 20.In his latest comments on immigration, all Parti Québécois wannabe leader Pierre-Karl Péladeau has succeeded in doing is to tighten the “nous” around his own neck.Rod Gale, Senneville, Que.

Self-defence debate

Re: Harper Was Right On Guns, editorial, March 20.The response to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s remark about self-defence showcase the naivete that is ever-present in our leadership. Canada’s laws make it virtually illegal to defend oneself with anything other than bare hands and harsh language. Many Canadians, including women and the elderly, are made helpless in the face of violence and threats. This is a situation that helps criminals, not citizens.

When Mr. Harper dared to suggest Canadians could take responsibility for their own safety (not justice), was he polarizing voters, or simply suggesting our free society should allow people their basic human rights?Kirill Stepanchuk, Kitchener, Ont.

Wakefield’s fatal legacy

Re: The Odd Truth On Anti-Vaxxers, March 9.The smallpox vaccine causes one or two deaths per one million people (historyofvaccines.org), compared to two million fatalities out of 15 million cases of the disease itself in 1967 (World Health Organization).

The vaccine-related deaths affected those with weakened immune systems, who can be protected with herd immunity. The very young, the very old and those undergoing chemotherapy can also be protected this way. Yet somehow, Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s false vaccines/autism correlation (1998) swayed enough opinions to modify the effectiveness of herd immunity. It was later determined this connection was a lie created solely for monetary gain. The British doctor has since had his medical licence revoked (2010).Morgan Lencucha, Lethbridge, Alta.

The importance of jihad

Re: Pandering In The Name Of Liberty, David Frum, March 17.David Frum’s column hit the bull’s eye on several accounts. His comments on the “new Jews” somehow always being the old Jews are apposite. Despite the bleating about “Islamophobia” by Islamist organizations, Statistics Canada reports Jews in Canada are 17 times more likely than Muslims to be victims of hate crimes based on religion.

He also highlights the civilizational aspect of Islam’s war against us. And it’s not just about the ideology of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham against our Western culture and its freedoms. It’s about the array of Islamist, mostly members of the Muslim Brotherhood, front groups and radical mosques (an estimated majority) in Canada.

The Muslim Brotherhood works to keep its adherents unintegrated and alienated in the host society as a fifth column — witness its success in cantonizing Europe. It asserts freedom of religion, but would never allow it for others. The government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper uniquely grasped this threat and made a politically risky decision to express civilizational self-confidence through the niqab ban, a first “volley” in this war. If normal Canadians perceive the threat, that is hardly pandering. The PM is no naif and must have known Liberal leader Justin Trudeau would take care of that end of things.Yosi Derman, Toronto.

Sinister precedent

Re: Centrifuge Plan Could Ease Deal, March 20.Details of the deal that will enable Iran to produce nuclear weapons are slowly oozing out. One thing that has escaped the notice of the negotiating team of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and President Barack Obama is why the Iranian bargainers want a 10-year treaty.

The Iranian regime is driven by Islamic religious precedent and riven by a doomsday theology of the hidden 12th Imam, the Mahdi. In the nuclear-weapon situation, the precedent is the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah. In 628, the Prophet Muhammad and his army were not strong enough to conquer the Quraish tribe that ruled Mecca, so he agreed to a 10-year “peace” treaty. Two years into the treaty, Muhammad and his army were strong enough, and abrogated the treaty. They conquered Mecca, and thereafter instigated many other conquests.

The precedent is clear for the Iranian leaders who venerate Muhammad as the Perfect Man. They can enter a treaty which they have no intention of keeping, until such time as they are strong enough to eliminate Jews in the Middle East, and as has already been done throughout Arabia. Then they can move on to the Great Satan.Michael N.W. Baigel, Toronto.

Days after winning re-election, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday backtracked from hard-line statements against the establishment of a Palestinian state in the face of a diplomatic backlash.

In the closing days of his campaign, Netanyahu said there could be no Palestinian state while regional violence and chaos persist – conditions that could rule out progress on the issue for many years. The comments, aimed at appealing to his nationalist voter base, angered the Obama administration, which views a two-state solution as a top foreign policy priority.

Netanyahu said in a TV interview Thursday that he remains committed to Palestinian statehood — if conditions in the region improve — and to the two-state vision first spelled out in a landmark 2009 speech at Israel’s Bar Ilan University.

“I haven’t changed my policy,” he said in a full interview with MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” excerpts of which will be shown on NBC’s “Nightly News” later on. “I never retracted my speech.”

I don’t want a one-state solution, I want a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution

At the time, he said he would agree to a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes Israel as a Jewish state. The Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has recognized Israel as a state but refuses to recognize its Jewish character, and last year formed a unity government backed by the Hamas militant group, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction.

In the interview, Netanyahu also pointed to the presence of hostile Islamic groups across the region and said that any captured territory handed over to Abbas would be taken over by militants. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and two years later Hamas seized control of the coastal territory, ousting forces loyal to Abbas.

“I don’t want a one-state solution, I want a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution, but for that circumstances have to change,” Netanyahu said. “And every territory that is vacated in the Middle East is taken up by Islamist forces.”

“You can’t impose peace. And in any case, if you want to get peace, you’ve got to get the Palestinian leadership to abandon their pact with Hamas and engage in genuine negotiations with Israel for an achievable peace,” Netanyahu said. “You have to have real negotiations with people who are committed to peace. We are. It’s time that we saw the pressure on the Palestinians to show that they are committed too,” he said.

A day before the election Netanyahu told the Israeli nrg news website that a Palestinian state would not be established on his watch because of the current climate in the region.

“Whoever ignores that is burying his head in the sand. The left is doing that, burying its head in the sand time after time,” he said in the video interview. When asked if that means a Palestinian state will not be established if he is elected, Netanyahu replied, “Indeed.”

The remarks drew heavy criticism from Washington, which said Wednesday that it was re-evaluating its options after Netanyahu’s hard-line comments. Relations between Netanyahu and the Obama administration were already at a low point after Netanyahu addressed Congress earlier this month on negotiations with Iran. The address was arranged with Republicans behind the White House’s back, a breach of diplomatic protocol.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Thursday that White House officials were talking to their Israeli counterparts to set up a call between Obama and Netanyahu, possible later in the day.

He reiterated the White House view that Netanyahu’s pre-election comments regarding a Palestinian state would mean the U.S. would have to reconsider its approach to U.S. policy. He did not go into specifics but pointedly cited the U.N. as an example of where the U.S. has supported Israel in the past.

The tough talk was part of a last-ditch attempt by Netanyahu to spur his more hard-line supporters to the polls in the final days of his campaign after it appeared he was losing voters to a more hawkish party.

On Tuesday, just a few hours before voting stations across the country shut, he warned that Arab citizens were voting “in droves” and endangering years of rule by his Likud Party. The comments drew accusations of racism in Israel, especially from its Arab minority, and a White House rebuke.

In Washington, the Obama administration said it was “deeply concerned” by the divisive language. And on Thursday, Earnest called it a “cynical election-day tactic that was a pretty transparent effort to marginalize Arab Israeli vote.”

In the MSNBC interview Netanyahu said he was “very proud of the fact that Israel is the one country in a very broad radius that — in which Arabs have free and fair elections. That’s sacrosanct. That will never change,” he said.

He repeated allegations he made during the campaign that external elements had funded the Joint List, a recently established alliance of four small, mostly Arab parties. Arab citizens make up 20 percent of Israel’s population.

“I wasn’t trying to suppress a vote; I was trying to get something to counter a foreign-funded effort to get votes that are intended to topple my party. And I was calling on our voters to come out,” he said.

Mulcair keeps it coolIn a very good column in the National Post, Terry Glavin observes that Thomas Mulcair is generally doing a good job keeping his New Democrats off “the frivolous battlefields where [Justin] Trudeau and quite a few Conservative rednecks are just itching to have a good go at one another.” For example, he hasn’t “upbraid[ed] rural voters who fail to soil themselves upon hearing that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has made some offhand comment … about the good sense of having a shotgun handy if one happens to live in the backwoods” — or, conversely, upbraided “the demographic that is given to fainting spells at the proposition that new Canadians might be politely asked to show their faces for the brief moment it takes to swear a loyalty oath at a citizenship ceremony.” Instead, Mulcair seems to be focusing on things that, y’know, matter.

With Mulcair talking up coalitions any chance he gets, Postmedia’s Andrew Coyne suggests the C-word might not be as effective a bogeyman for the Conservatives now as it was in the past. The 2008 coalition “was a uniquely rickety construct,” as he says. The Liberals were in disarray; “the NDP was still viewed as a marginal left-wing boutique; its leader, while well-liked, had never held executive office”; and there was that silver-haired gent tenting his fingers in the corner. Nowadays, the prospect of a Liberal-led coalition with the more experienced Mulcair as Deputy PM “might even be a plus” for the anyone-but-Harperists, Coyne suggests.

There’s no getting around the message Mulcair’s position sends to voters, the Toronto Star‘s Tim Harper argues: “We can’t form a government on our own.” But it has advantages, not least that “raising the issue now inoculates them during the campaign, making it old news for Mulcair and throwing the focus back to Trudeau when the question is inevitably raised.” Indeed. What we really need is to normalize the possibility of coalitions, such that it’s seen as a sane possible outcome and not a massive preoccupation — and such that merely acknowledging the possibility of a coalition isn’t, in fact, seen as an admission of weakness.

(Very) provincial affairsIn the Star, Franz Hartmann of the Toronto Environmental Alliance frets that if the Ontario government gets too enthusiastic about beer in grocery stores, then “the big breweries may decide the Beer Store model no longer makes business sense and rely solely on grocery stores for beer distribution,” which in turn would “likely see the end of the deposit return system … the Beer Store developed.” The thing is, bottle deposits is not a particularly revolutionary idea, nor is it particularly difficult to implement. There are any number of models in place across Canada, all of which boast decent-to-excellent bottle recovery rates.

In other news, Cohn suspects opponents of liberalization will not be deterred by how silly they look, and that supporters of further liberalization will be out of luck. Convenience stores, for example, won’t be invited to the party because of “lack of shelf space,” which is just … cripes, this province. Where did the 200-odd convenience stores that already sell beer find the space?

Nativists on paradeThe Montreal Gazette‘s Don Macpherson reports on Coalition Avenir Québec leader François Legault’s latest efforts to out-nativist the Parti Québécois: He wants Ottawa to deport immigrants who after three years in Quebec are insufficiently fluent in French and/or reverential towards “Quebec values.” “He would expel them even if they only ‘denigrated’ the ‘values’ protected by the [Quebec] charter [of rights] — which is “ironic,” as Macpherson says, “since one of the things the charter now protects is freedom of expression.” It’s also ironic that Quebec’s self-appointed Chief Mosque Inspector is suddenly so moist on the charter, which protects freedom of religion. Yves Boisvert, writing in TheGlobe and Mail, thinks Legault’s idea is “illegal, unconstitutional and above all, economically and socially stupid.”

The Star‘s Thomas Walkom tries to frame Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election as a “good omen” for Stephen Harper, inasmuch as both are playing the “national security” card in an attempt to fend off widely expected defeat. If “national security” were anything like the priority among Canadians that it is among Israelis, he might be on to something.